Calculation of temperature elevation caused by ultrasound absorption

It has been known for decades that ultrasound is capable of producing physiological change in man and in laboratory animals. A dominant mechanism for the change is temperature elevation resulting from sound absorption. It has been shown for some situations that the processes for heat generation and transport are understood well enough to make it feasible to predict the temperature that results from specific acoustic exposures. Thus Pond, Robinson and Lele, Carstensen, Lizzi, and others have successfully calculated intensity‐time combinations required for production of recognizable lesions in mammalian tissues and other media. There is now special interest in computational methods for application to ultrasonic hyperthermia, and also to the formulation of safety criteria for diagnostic ultrasound. For the latter purpose a simplified method has been developed, based on a Green's function solution to the bio‐heat transfer equation. In this paper, previous work on temperature calculations is reviewed, and recent results discussed.